Posted on 09/14/2004 9:33:17 PM PDT by Roamin53
But the interesting thing is the training I was getting. I was trained in the repair of the very typewriters that are in discussion now on the CBS Documents. The IBM Selectric, and Executive. The Executive, which is the one that uses the proportional spacing was introduced in 1944 (model a exec) and evolved through the Model B in the 50's and the model C in the 60's. They were very sophisticated but totally incapable of producing the documents produced by CBS. Number 1....no superscript....number 2....incapable of the line spacing shown...number 3... I never saw the Times new Roman type style (although I can't say it didn't exist). I can also attest as to how hard it was to use the Executive. The proportional typing was controlled by proportional escapement of the typewriter's carriage (I.E. 5 units for w and 2 units for s or l, etc. The backspace worked 1 unit at a time and there were two space bars...1 two unit and 1 three.) a complete nightmare unless you were a trained secretarial type. In other words...to retype a letter you had to back up the right number of units etc. A non typist, as the officer in question is described by his family...would not be typing memos to file on an IBM Executive typewriter unless he wanted a nervous breakdown.
The other thing is the cost...double the price of a regular IBM typewriter (the most expensive typewriter available).
And selectrics didn't have proportional spacing until the superexpensive Composer came out . And that was mainly used for typesetting and fine printing. These were never , and
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